A perfect storm is raging over the India-Canada relationship. Its force has led to the dramatic turn of events at the start of the week when India and Canada chose to expel each other’s top-ranking diplomats, in effect declaring a diplomatic war that is unlikely to end anytime soon.
Canada left no doubt as to who initiated this latest escalation of a long running feud over the North American country actively encouraging separatist elements among expatriate Sikhs who are inimical to India and are committed to setting up a homeland by breaching the territorial integrity of India.
Going beyond last year’s speech in the Canadian House of Commons in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had accused India of taking a hand in the June 2023 killing of pro-Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, Canada accused India of skullduggery in dealing with Khalistan sympathisers, even accusing the Indian high commissioner, a very senior diplomat of 36 years’ standing, of being complicit in Nijjar’s death.
Several red lines may have been crossed in a relationship that had been going sour ever since Mr Trudeau visited India in 2018. Crossing the latest one could be akin to fording the Rubicon with Canada averring that India has been up to dirty tricks in scuttling the lives of Khalistan promoters and sympathisers resident in Canada with foul means.
Far from attempting to be diplomatic, the scenario being created is more like war, which is not quite minus the shooting if some of Canada’s outrageous charges levelled against Indian diplomats were to contain even a smidgen of truth. Indians have been accused of leaning on gangland characters to threaten Sikhs and encouraging nefarious activities like extortion and threats to life.
If Canada had intended to settle the issue by addressing any misgivings directly with India’s top leadership, Mr Trudeau would have been diplomatic about it when there was no loss of confidence yet in the intent behind the relationship. On the contrary, he went public on the floor of Parliament accusing India of murder of one pesky individual on Canadian soil.
The conclusion to be drawn is simple enough: So long as Mr Trudeau clings to power when barely surviving confidence votes while facing a precipitous drop in popularity polls ratings and keeps playing up to a former ally in the New Democratic Party of Jagmeet Singh in the hope of gaining support in the coming polls from the 7.7 lakh Sikhs, this problem with India will not go away. Only if the Canadian poll results are different the next time out may there be a realistic chance of diplomacy working because hate seems to have taken over.
Given the hard lines spoken in accusations traded, there is not even a chance that India would set up credible probes and follow them up as it is doing in the case of similar US charges over a (failed) plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York. In India’s books, Mr Trudeau has made himself an undesirable person to deal with whose attempts to accost the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at multilateral forums have been largely rebuffed.
